Retrieving files from old hard drives.

Losttheplot

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I currently have a couple of hard drives i removed from my desktop pc after the powersupply failed.

Is there anyway i can connect these to my laptop to view the files that are left on them?

The connectors look like the standard power feed cables, along with the ribbon sockets.

Thanks a lot,

nathan
 
you want one of these

From you saying ribbon cables you'll want the 3.5" ide version. If the ribbon cable connector on the hard drive is just over 2 inches wide it'll be ide. :thumb

Really easy to do, open up the casing and fit the drive as you would in a pc, close it all back up connect everything and away you go, windows should auto recognise it too :D

If you have a home network you could buy a caddy for each drive and one of these. That would allow you to make use of those drives and keep them out of the way. Would also allow more than one person to access the drive at any one time. I have one hooked up to a 500gb drive and use it as media storage for music and films, can even stream them to my android phone and access the files from anywhere in the world via the net :thumb2
 
jumperboy said:
Or a new powersupply...
Click to expand...

Done that, but i think the PSU sent a "spike" when it expired, and screwed the motherboard and processor to, basicaly putting the PC beyond economical repair.

I'm just hoping the hard drives are fried to!
 
Power supplies do not send spikes when they fail, they stop sending power. The motherboard can become faulty and pull the power supply down.

What happens when you try to start your old desktop with your new power supply installed? Do you see the BIOS start-up screen? You may need to press F1 or F10, or another F-key, depending upon the set-up and manufacturer of your machine to see if the BIOS is running. If this runs then your motherboard is likley to be okay.

BTW, you can easily restore your old HDDs.
 
DitchWater said:
Power supplies do not send spikes when they fail, they stop sending power. The motherboard can become faulty and pull the power supply down.

What happens when you try to start your old desktop with your new power supply installed? Do you see the BIOS start-up screen? You may need to press F1 or F10, or another F-key, depending upon the set-up and manufacturer of your machine to see if the BIOS is running. If this runs then your motherboard is likley to be okay.

BTW, you can easily restore your old HDDs.
Click to expand...

I beg to differ there, my old pc went bang when the psu decided to put out 240v instead of 12v and blew the tops off every capacitor in the pc. I don't think that was a motherboard fault.
I was able to recover most of the stuff I wanted off my old hard drives before they too finally succumbed to the overdose of volts.
 
jez said:
I beg to differ there, my old pc went bang when the psu decided to put out 240v instead of 12v and blew the tops off every capacitor in the pc. I don't think that was a motherboard fault.
I was able to recover most of the stuff I wanted off my old hard drives before they too finally succumbed to the overdose of volts.
Click to expand...

I would as well, when a switch mode power supply fails, it's quite easy to find high voltages present on the the outputs, even if only for a very short time. The main cause of motherboard failure after overheating is a power supply going phut, at least from things I've had to fix.

It's probably not mains at the output, as the mains is generally quite well isolated with a HF transformer and opto isolation in the control loop, but if the control loop function fails, the output voltage can rise very sharply as the energy stored in the internal components is released in an uncontrolled manner.
 
jez said:
I beg to differ there, my old pc went bang when the psu decided to put out 240v instead of 12v and blew the tops off every capacitor in the pc. I don't think that was a motherboard fault.
I was able to recover most of the stuff I wanted off my old hard drives before they too finally succumbed to the overdose of volts.
Click to expand...

That's very unfortunate, and rare, as rare as looking up into the night sky and witnessing a dying star going Super Nova. :cool:

In that case, I suspect what happened to your PSU was that it's transformer went short circuit between its primary and secondary coils which found a path to your MBO and caressed it with around 350 volts of switched mode DC. :comfort
I bet that was a fun moment. :thumb

I've just read what Shugie's said...:thumb2
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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